Adam Rabin: Campus diversity important part of college education

June 28, 2013

One of my favorite movies is "Remember the Titans," which portrays a true story about a high school football team from Virginia that struggles to reconcile racial tensions after desegregation. Head Coach Herman Boone (played by Denzel Washington) realizes that if his team is going to succeed his players need to overcome prejudice and misunderstanding and work as one.

Boone takes his team to Gettysburg for training camp where he forces the black and white players to eat at the same tables, sleep in the same room and train side by side. As a result, the players learn that their preconceived notions and negative stereotypes about each others' race were wrong, products of their ignorance and isolation.

But would they have formed those interracial bonds on their own, bonds that ultimately united the team and propelled it to victory? It's unlikely. As they say, "We don't know what we don't know."

But here's what I do know. The use of affirmative action in our colleges and universities should not be decided by the courts as it was, sort of, this week in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. By a 7-1 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case, which challenged consideration of race as a factor in college admission, back to the Fifth Circuit Court for further consideration.

Justice Clarence Thomas joined the majority but wrote a concurring opinion comparing today's affirmative action policies to the Jim Crow era of higher education: "There is no principled distinction between the university's assertion that diversity yields educational benefits and the segregationists' assertion that segregation yielded those same benefits."

His opinion, unfortunately, is reflective of a poll conducted last year by Rasmussen Reports in which 55 percent of American voters said race should not be considered in admission decisions. Well, 55 percent of voters and Justice Thomas are wrong. Diversity is crucial to a college education and the progression of society.

It was only after leaving my suburban "bubble" in Scarsdale, N.Y., and attending Lafayette College that I realized how socially isolated I had been for the first 18 years of my life. My social and political views, my jargon, my culture and my outlook on life had been molded by my surroundings — a homogenous, 1 percent-esque island. If you did not go to college, if your family did not spend five figures on SAT tutoring, if you did not have the latest Apple product, then you got the pejorative Scarlet Letter; I even received a fair share of flak for not going to an Ivy League school. Until I went to college, I truly thought this was how the world operated. I was ignorant because I viewed life through this provincial lens.

Being on campus, I not only fostered invaluable interracial friendships, but I also came to understand different points of view, disparate cultures and lifestyles, and others gained insight into mine. I have friends who before coming to school never met a Jew, never spoke to a foreigner and never had a friend of a different race. Diversity on campus forces people to interact in countless settings that, in turn, debunks negative stereotypes and facilitates both academic and social learning. One friend of Muslim heritage exposed me to Lebanese culture, cuisine and art; another friend showed me the depths of Indian life through music and history; and two African-American friends introduced me to the intricacies of modern black culture through music, history, sport and dancing. Without these influences, I would have been deprived of a full college experience.

Our society cannot operate without multicultural and racial inclusion. We need to perpetuate and embrace diversity on all levels of society — from our more urban elementary schools to the monoliths on Wall Street. That way, the 1 percent and 99 percent will better understand each other. The tea partyers and left wingers will respect the others' views. Police will conduct more racially balanced stop-and-frisk searches. Our society can only move forward by educating the ignorant.

The solution? Let universities make their own affirmative action policies, and task the court with preventing extremism and ensuring students from all races, religions and cultures are represented on college campuses. The court should not create its own policies, but act as a check and safeguard against unfair affirmative action programs that a university may decide to enact.

We all need diversity, because without it, no one wins. Just ask Coach Boone.

Adam Rabin is a 2013 graduate of Lafayette College who will attend University of Chicago in the fall to pursue a master's degree in constitutional history and race relations.